This recipe uses Hillshire Farm smoked sausage, which is smoked with premium cuts of turkey, pork and beef sausage. Depending on the beer you use, your dish can have a rich, earthy flavor, or a sweet and citrusy flavor.

If you’re new to cooking with beer, there are a few things you might want to know so that you can create a feast that your whole family loves. Different types of beer pair better with certain types of foods and ingredients. Two main kinds of beers you’ll see in recipes are lagers and ales. Ales tend to add a slightly sweet and fruity flavor to recipes. Most lagers can be drier and lighter. And then, within these two brew categories, there are several types of beer styles, like wheat beer, pale ale, stout and porter.

You can spend all day researching all the different types of beer, how they pair with various ingredients, but what’s most important is which beer pairs best with this smoked sausage and potatoes recipe.

Here’s the gist: Simmering sausage in wheat beer will produce a mildly fruity and sweet flavor. Pairing pale ale with sausage will taste earthy and crisp. Porters are a natural choice when cooking smoked sausage. The pairing tends to bring out flavors from dark, pigmented fruits and berries, like figs, prunes, cherries, and plums. Stout is a dark and dry brew. When used in sausage recipes, it will have deep and toasty notes, like coffee and chocolate.

You can make this sausage and potato recipe using different types of Hillshire Farm sausage products, too. Tangy Tajin Chili Lime Smoked Sausage goes well with a citrusy IPA. If you’re making Cajun-style andouille smoked sausage, then we suggest going with a wood-smoked brown ale.